When you transfer hotel loyalty points to British Airways, you get a 30% bonus. Historically this bonus moves around between 25% and 35%, but as it usually only runs once per year it isn’t necessarily worth holding out for anything better.

There are a few simple rules you must follow:

Rule 1: You must convert your hotel points to British Airways Executive Club Avios before 31st March. 31st March is the date by which the points must leave your hotel account, not arrive at ba.com

Rule 3: There are minimum transfer requirements in theory, but these are the same as the lowest possible transfer out of that programme. Nothing has changed compared to the normal transfer rules.

Rule 4: Only lump sum transfers of existing points get the bonus. Points earned directly from stays – if you choose to take Avios instead of hotel points – do not attract the bonus as they would fall under the minimum transfer threshold.

Rule 5: You can make multiple transfers from multiple programmes and, based on past experience, all will attract the bonus.

In general, hotel points are best redeemed for hotel stays. Let’s look at the points needed for a high category room redemption, which I am assuming is worth £250 a night. The Avios conversion does not include the 30 per cent bonus.

World of Hyatt – 25,000 to 30,000 points = 10,000 Avios to 12,500 Avios or a £250 room

Looking at these numbers, youare probably better leaving large stashes of hotel points where they are.

The only exception is Marriott Bonvoy. When Marriott introduces Category 8 on 5th March, and its most expensive hotels jump to 85,000 points (=33,000+ Avios), you might think twice about taking a free night over 33,000+ miles.

Radisson Rewards is the most extreme case where you probably should take the free room. I’d far rather have a £250 five-star hotel night for 70,000 points than take (7,000 + 30%) 9,100 Avios.

For a small amount of points it is a different decision

A couple of years ago I tidied up some of my small hotel balances by converting to Avios, often topping up first from American Express Membership Rewards, and didn’t regret it. If you will never earn enough for a free room, you might as well convert them and a 30 per cent bonus is a good excuse.

The other thing to remember is that the hotel chains convert to many airline programmes, often over 20. You may get a 30 per cent bonus via Avios, but perhaps topping off another account may be more useful? If you had a very large pile of hotel points, you may be able to get enough points from scratch in, say, Etihad Guest to get yourself a trip in the Etihad First Class Apartment. Avios is not always the answer.

Here is my final thought – why not transfer a small balance to another person?

You can transfer IHG Rewards Club points to someone else for $5 per 1000, Hilton points for FREE with the new pooling feature, Marriott Bonvoy points for FREE up to 100,000 per year and Radisson Rewards points for FREE if you share an address. Hyatt points can be pooled if you ring and redeem them immediately (both accounts must have had a stay in the last 12 months).

Perhaps a transfer to a friend who can use a larger total for a hotel room is a better deal than taking a handful of Avios for yourself, even with the 30% bonus?

This offer runs until 31st March so you have plenty of time to decide.

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Comments

Apologies if its been mentioned over the last few days. Shell are changing the Drivers Club card to a new loyalty scheme later this month. Information about the change is on the Shell app and it appears to be moving away from the quarterly vouchers to money off fuel every ten visits and 10% off hot drinks and the new (rotten) Jamie Oliver food range. No mention of Avios or Waitrose redemptions continuing on the limited information that is on the app.

Amex Plat…does anyone know if the car hire excess insurance covers zipcar hire? i know it has to be related to holiday hire but as I’m hiring the zipcar to drive to the airport surely that would count as holiday but not sure about the car club aspect

Interesting timing. I could really do with closing a MR account, but have held off so far. Can I crowdsource an opinion? I have MR and a reasonable (for me) chunk of Bonvoy. Is it worth combining the two and converting to Avios for the bonus? Genuine question – at what point would your own ‘balance’ tip in favour of doing this?

It could be worth doing if you’re close to 60,000 / 120,000 / 180,000 etc Marriott points as you get 5000 bonus avios + 30% on top for every 60,000 Marriott points you transfer to Avios. So yes it might be worth while transferring a small amount of MR points to ensure you get the 5000 bonus

Actually… on a point of Mathematical pedantry, I think (if you were planning to convert the MR points to Avios anyway, and you have no better plans for the Marriott points) the tipping point is 32142 Marriott points. If you have a stash of 32142 Marriott points or more, have no future plans for travel packages or can’t realistically aspire to exciting Marriott hotel redemptions, and are happy to zero out the account, topping up to 60000 with MR points and then transferring to Avios with the 5000 bonus, all multiplied by 1.3 (assuming the 30% increase is applied to the 5000 bonus too) will be better than transferring the MR points and the Marriott points separately.

At least I think so.

I’ve had most of a bottle of wine and a Caiprinha, if anyone cares to quibble my Maths, you might be right…

Seeing as it’s a little quiet a little OT. I cannot remember if for Marriott Bonvoy you need to pay with a credit card issued in your own name. Reason to ask is have a stay in KL coming up and need to hit the spend bonus on my Wife’s card. We will be using my account to check in as am PLT. Thanks for any feedback.

Depends what kind of balance we’re talking about? If you are interested in a transfer to Krisflyer and you have quite a lot of points, it might be worth taking out the US Dollar Amex charge card and transferring your MR points to that. I transferred 230k points last week which converted to 306k MR points in my US Dollar account, which I have today transferred to Krisflyer.

Currently 160K, but increasing with referrals. Up until now I’ve churned and transferred to avios, given I’ve now got (or going to get) enough for a useful redemption I’d like to know what others have found.

Any good/bad seats? Seem to remember at front/back of cabin you get the window seat which has easy access?
I don’t have any BA status, so chance of getting best seats is slim I guess at 24 hours out, but if there are any to aim for/avoid, would appreciate the tips.
I’ve read FT and seat guru etc, but value the HFP tips more!

On 787-9 the mini cabin at the front is the best with only two rows. 7A or 7k are window seats with direct aisle access. Rear cabin 13A&K also, but they are close to PE, so can be a bit noisy. Check the BA Source website for the best advice.

On A380 you might want the upperdeck if you are after a view as pretty much all CW window seats downstairs stare directly at the giant wings of the aircraft.

53A/53K are the best window seats with direct aisle access. Close to galley so might be noisy but probably fine. 59A/53K also have direct aisle access but the seats slightly encroach the WTP cabin so you may find yourself inline with a baby bassinet.

Hope not, I transferred 120k yesterday without entering any codes. I followed links through from BA which opened an offer-specific page within Marriott. I found that quite interesting in itself because in tbe past I just went directly to SPG, did the transfer and got the bonus. There was no need to go via BA; there still may not be but probably best to exercise caution in this respect.

Can someone let us know if they received the 30% bonus from their specific Bonvoy transfer once it credits please? I contacted BA as the codes confused me too due to there being no facility to enter the code online and very unhelpfully, once BA admitted that such an offer existed, they said it was nothing to do with them and to contact Marriott! Rather than take the risk of making the transfer with no ensuing bonus, it would be good to know from others if the bonus credited. Also, please let us know if the bonus pays on the whole transfer and not just 9k, 30k, 60k, 90k and 120k round figures so, for example, will 32,179 qualify for the bonus in entirety and not just the 30k element. Many thanks for your help and apologies for asking for guinea pigs!

I transferred 120K bonvoy points. Rob confirmed I would get 65K (bonus from both bonvoy and BA). That was exactly what I received – requested bonvoy point transfer (did it via logon my bonvoy account – not telephone) on 4th March and received avios on 9th March. Cannot answer your question if the BA bonus would apply on the odd number of bonvoy points. I did not know I could transfer the odd number points – maybe good to know for next time.

@Genghis, I’m maxed out on switches. Have you ever got a second bonus from any of them despite not meeting the eligibility criteria (in respect of date you last held the account)? I would like to get back into HSBC but keep waiting on them changing the January 16 condition.

@Genghis – have you used the Marcus account at 1.5%? I am in the process of amalgamating my pensions and plan on taking a chunk of tax free cash which I want to keep in easy access for now and then start drawing down a tax free income (extra travel pot) in my own right.

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